This invention generally relates to baby bottle liners, baby bottles, and a baby bottle having a reclosable plastic liner with properties that permit the liner to be reused.
Nursing pouches and disposable baby bottle liners provide a convenient way for nursing, working mothers to provide nourishment and sustenance for newborns and growing babies. Various studies have shown that there are benefits that accrue from breast feeding babies, and should breast feeding be contraindicated, from feeding children appropriate quantities of nutritious liquids and dietary supplements. However, there are various problems associated with the current technology.
Working mothers need a convenient way to store breast milk and then feed their children at appropriate times. Current baby bottle liners do not provide a way to safely store breast milk while minimizing the risk of external contamination of the milk, and internal bacterial growth. One such exemplary prior art baby bottle and liner is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,385,251 (xe2x80x9c""251 Patentxe2x80x9d). The ""251 Patent describes a baby bottle liner that provides a reclosable feature at one end of the liner. A serious drawback of this prior art patent involves the risk of contamination of the contents of the liner at the ends of the reclosable fastener and through the fastener itself. The liner of the ""251 Patent permits contamination by microbes through the sides of the fastener which are open to the environment. Further, the fastener itself permits air and water to enter the inside of the liner and contaminate the contents thereof. Consequently, a nursing mother may be feeding her child breast milk that may be contaminated with microbes which could cause serious gastrointestinal problems for the child.
Further, the prior art does not solve the problem of how to place an airtight and water tight reclosable string fastener on a liner that is of a size of most liners for baby bottles. Conventional baby bottle liners are generally narrow in width. Hence, placement and sealing of a reclosable fastener onto a liner of narrow width is also a serious problem.
Similarly, Design U.S. Pat. No. 315,601, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,204,855, 3,672,122, 3,790,017, 3,822,806, 4,238,040, 4,339,046, 4,466,547, 4,501,585, 4,600,104, and 4,896,912 are designed for one time use, yet have a number of serious drawbacks. If the child does not consume the entire quantity of milk held in the liner, the milk must be transferred to another container for storage thereof since the liners were not created to store the unused portion of the milk in a substantially sterile condition. Another drawback of these prior art patents includes that lack of the ability to reuse the liner holder for another beverage. The contents of the liner that are initially held in the liner must be emptied, and the liner disposed of if the holder is to be reused.
Hence, there exists a need to solve the problems in the art that are articulated above.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art, and in doing so provide a baby bottle liner constructed and arranged to fit into a cavity of a rigid, conventional baby bottle or holder. The baby bottle liner has a continuous, profiled, elongated reclosable fastener sealed to the inside walls of the liner. The continuous, profiled, elongated reclosable fastener includes a first continuous elongated profile strip and a second continuous elongated profile strip. The first continuous elongated profile strip and the second continuous elongated profile strip are sized and dimensioned to provide an airtight and/or watertight seal upon interconnection thereof.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a baby bottle liner that has an airtight and/or watertight side seal at each end of the reclosable fastener. Each of the side seals connects an end of the reclosable fastener to an inside surface of a front wall and an inside surface of a back wall of the liner.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a baby bottle liner that includes a gussetted bottom, and an airtight and watertight seal at the gussetted bottom.
It is another object of the invention to provide a baby bottle liner in which the first continuous elongated profile strip and the second continuous elongated profile strip each have at least two hooks thereon. The hooks on the first continuous elongated profile strip, or optionally the hooks on the second continuous elongated profile strip, are adjacent to each other. In a variant of the invention, at least one of the hooks is at an end of the first continuous elongated profile strip. A second hook of the two hooks is located proximal to the hook at the end of the first continuous elongated profile strip.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a baby bottle liner that includes a plurality of continuous recesses along a length of each of the profile strips. At least one of the recesses is dimensioned to resealably mate with one of the hooks, in one embodiment of the invention. In yet another embodiment of the invention, at least two of the continuous recesses are dimensioned to resealably mate with the hooks.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a baby bottle liner in which at least one continuous recess on each the profile strips is not dimensioned to mate with the hooks, and, in a variant, provide at least one protuberance along a length of each of the profile strips dimensioned to fit securely in the one continuous recess on each of the profile strip not dimensioned to mate with the hooks.
In one variant, at least one of the hooks on the first continuous elongated profile strip is located near the center of the profile strip. In another variant of the invention the hooks are substantially symmetrically distributed on two sides of a center axis of the profile strip.
In yet another embodiment, it is an object of the invention to provide a reclosable fastener that has a plurality of ridges on a back side of each of the profile strips.
Another object of the invention is to provide a baby bottle liner that has infant formula therein. In this variant and other variants of the invention, a top end seal is placed above the reclosable fastener to keep the infant formula hermetically sealed within the liner.
Yet a further object of the invention is to provide a baby bottle with the baby bottle liner described herein, and a kit for infant nursing comprising a plurality of baby bottle liners according to the invention. The kit optionally includes a baby bottle, and/or infant formula.
Another object of the invention includes a baby bottle liner that is constructed from a microwavable plastic, a food grade microwavable plastic, and/or a microwave safe plastic.
In yet another embodiment of the invention, the baby bottle liner includes an additive that changes color when the temperature of the contents of the liner increases or reaches a predetermined temperature range.
It is another object of the present invention to solve these and other problems in the art, and to serve a market that demands hundreds of millions of reclosable plastic baby bottle liners annually. The objects and features of the present invention, other than those specifically set forth above, will become apparent in the detailed description of the invention set forth below and in the drawings.